upgrade cc3 to cc4, minimize downtime

[Guest go77306]

Hi, I have CC3 up and running. I am plannign to purchase CC4.2.2 and replace my CC3. I don't want to do the upgrade because I want to customize CC4 and I don't want my store down for more than 30 minutes.

Here is what I am planning to do:

my current CC3 is installed in www/store

fresh install CC4 on a directory, e.g. www/cc4

customize it, install mods I want (it may take days or even weeks)

after I have finished customization, I want to import my CC3 database to my CC4 database, then rename www/store to www/cc3 and rename www/cc4 to www/store, so my customers can still access the same link to reach my store.

Do you mind tell me is that ok? do you have any scripts for me to run just convert cc3 database to cc4 database?

[Ausy]

Sounds all good. The only tricky part for most people is importing all of the database correctly, I would hire the services of an expert over at cubecartforums.org for that bit. It would be well worth it in terms of getting it done correctly and without hassle.

The other thing you could do is back up you existing CC3 and install that into the directory where your new CC4 will reside, then upgrade it to CC4 using the facility within the installation procedure, that way the upgrade script takes care of everything. You can then carry out mods and tweaks to it before going live.

[Guest go77306]

will upgrade take care all the settings or only products/orders/customers?

For example, tax/shipping/site title/ all these settings?

This is no clear to me...

[Guest]

When I upgraded my store, I made a copy of my CC3 database and used that to perform a 'test' upgrade to CC4. All of my original settings remained the same, as did all products, categories, options, etc.

The ONLY issue with upgrading the database was in the data for 3rd party mods, which remained the same. After doing the test upgrade, I spent a couple of weeks upgrading the code with 3rd party mods (mostly the same ones I had for CC3, but in their CC4 versions), and all but one of them used their old data exactly as before.

The only mod that gave any trouble was the Downloadable Product Options mod, and the only thing I really had to do with that one was to manually create a couple of new fields in the database tables.

Once everything was set, switching the site over from CC3 to CC4 was a simple matter which took less than a minute, and that's even moving CC4 to the root directory.

To do this, here are the steps I took:

1. First, once I had the CC4 code exactly as I wanted it, I downloaded a copy to my desktop computer. (If you don't already have a copy of your CC3 installation, this would be a good time to do that too.)
   
2. Next, I edited the global conf file to point to the root directory of my site, rather than the test directory it was installed to.
   
3. Now, I ZIPped the files into an archive file.
   
4. Uploaded the archive file to the root directory of my site.
   
5. At this point, the site is still using the CC3 installation, using the original database. There is a 2nd database for the CC4 installation.
   
6. At "GO" time, I logged into my CPanel file manager. From there, I deleted all CC3 files and folders.
   
7. Immediately after this, I selected the archive file for the CC4 installation, and clicked the link to decompress it in place.
   
8. At this point, CC4 is live and functioning, using the CC4 database. The original CC3 database is still in place.
   

The forum seems to be rejecting my full post, so the rest will be posted separately.

After I switched my store over, the next step was to update the database with new orders that came in while I was busy upgrading the CC4 code. To do this, I once more made a copy of the original CC3 database and performed an upgrade installation using it to CC4 in the test directory.

After the fact, I realized there was a script in the CC4 setup folder that would do this for me without going through the full upgrade process. However, just going to the point where I got the message "The database has been upgraded." was good enough to not play havoc with the license key.

Now that the most current CC3 database has been upgraded, the next step is to import the new orders/customers/download keys into the CC4 database. I did this by using phpMyAdmin from within CPanel to export the CC3 database tables into an SQL file and downloaded this to my computer. Export ONLY the required 4 tables.

At this point, I DROPped the 4 tables from the CC4 database, and IMPORTed the fresh tables from the newly upgraded database.

And voila! A complete, 100% upgraded CC4 with less than a minute of downtime.

[Guest go77306]

Wow!! thanks for such a detailed post!

thank you!

When I upgraded my store, I made a copy of my CC3 database and used that to perform a 'test' upgrade to CC4. All of my original settings remained the same, as did all products, categories, options, etc.

The ONLY issue with upgrading the database was in the data for 3rd party mods, which remained the same. After doing the test upgrade, I spent a couple of weeks upgrading the code with 3rd party mods (mostly the same ones I had for CC3, but in their CC4 versions), and all but one of them used their old data exactly as before.

The only mod that gave any trouble was the Downloadable Product Options mod, and the only thing I really had to do with that one was to manually create a couple of new fields in the database tables.

Once everything was set, switching the site over from CC3 to CC4 was a simple matter which took less than a minute, and that's even moving CC4 to the root directory.

To do this, here are the steps I took:

1. First, once I had the CC4 code exactly as I wanted it, I downloaded a copy to my desktop computer. (If you don't already have a copy of your CC3 installation, this would be a good time to do that too.)
   
2. Next, I edited the global conf file to point to the root directory of my site, rather than the test directory it was installed to.
   
3. Now, I ZIPped the files into an archive file.
   
4. Uploaded the archive file to the root directory of my site.
   
5. At this point, the site is still using the CC3 installation, using the original database. There is a 2nd database for the CC4 installation.
   
6. At "GO" time, I logged into my CPanel file manager. From there, I deleted all CC3 files and folders.
   
7. Immediately after this, I selected the archive file for the CC4 installation, and clicked the link to decompress it in place.
   
8. At this point, CC4 is live and functioning, using the CC4 database. The original CC3 database is still in place.
   

The forum seems to be rejecting my full post, so the rest will be posted separately.

After I switched my store over, the next step was to update the database with new orders that came in while I was busy upgrading the CC4 code. To do this, I once more made a copy of the original CC3 database and performed an upgrade installation using it to CC4 in the test directory.

After the fact, I realized there was a script in the CC4 setup folder that would do this for me without going through the full upgrade process. However, just going to the point where I got the message "The database has been upgraded." was good enough to not play havoc with the license key.

Now that the most current CC3 database has been upgraded, the next step is to import the new orders/customers/download keys into the CC4 database. I did this by using phpMyAdmin from within CPanel to export the CC3 database tables into an SQL file and downloaded this to my computer. Export ONLY the required 4 tables.

At this point, I DROPped the 4 tables from the CC4 database, and IMPORTed the fresh tables from the newly upgraded database.

And voila! A complete, 100% upgraded CC4 with less than a minute of downtime.